Wednesday, January 05, 2011

The limitations of language

Northern Ireland Water's embattled boss, we are told, quit his job tonight after huge pressure was put on him to resign over the Christmas water crisis. It is understood Laurence MacKenzie offered his resignation earlier this evening and recommended that Sinn Féin's regional development minister, Conor Murphy, accept it. MacKenzie is expected to walk away with around £500,000.

And there, language is not enough. It is quite impossible adequately to express one's anger and contempt for a system which rewards public servants for their failures, flying in the face of common sense and justice. And it is this lack of penalty for failure – and in fact the rewarding of failure – that is bringing the system down.

But there is only so much people will tolerate, and this is the system taking the piss in the most contemptible way. And if the gutless and venal politicians cannot address this issue, the Northern Irish people have a recent history of more direct action.

Putting it brutally, but realistically, if Mr MacKenzie's mutilated body was now found on the streets of Belfast, do you think that anyone outside his immediate family would regret that the fat slob had met his end? To that pretty pass does the insolence of our rulers bring us. They know not what they do.